audio crashing bug, macos26 edition

As I mentioned in the subject, coreaudiod is a root process, meaning you need to ascend using sudo and then authenticate. By default, sudo assumes that you are calling it from a terminal and asks for your password in the standard error stream, however it can be configured to authenticate using TouchID instead, which is likely mandatory in this case, so I'm also providing instructions on how to switch to that authentication method near the end of this comment.

To kill the CoreAudio daemon thus forcing the system to restart it, we'll be using the following AppleScript code:

do shell script "sudo killall -KILL coreaudiod"

Paste the above in a new AppleScript script created using the Script Editor built-in app, save the script somewhere, and then open VoiceOver Utility, go to the Commands category, make sure that the Option Keys feature is enabled and configured to your liking, press the Command set: Edit button, and in Command Assignments go to Custom Commands -> Run AppleScript script, and assign the script that you created earlier to an Option key combination of your choice.

To switch to TouchID as the default authentication method for sudo, run the following command in a Terminal window with a default shell command-line prompt, grant the right privileges to Terminal, and enter your password when prompted:

perl -pe 's/^#(?=auth)//' /etc/pam.d/sudo_local.template | sudo tee /etc/pam.d/sudo_local

The above command is rather convoluted because last time I checked Apple wasn't letting most applications touch system configuration files directly, and this operation requires modifying the contents of /etc/pam.d/sudo_local.template to uncomment the line enabling TouchID authentication before copying it to the protected /etc/pam.d/sudo_local. The solution presented by the command above uses the Perl programming language through its perl command to read /etc/pam.d/sudo_local.template line by line, remove the hash sign from any lines starting with #auth thus uncommenting them, and prints the result as its output. The output of the perl command is then redirected to the input of the tee command, whose function is duplicate its input by saving one copy to the protected /etc/pam.d/sudo_local while also printing it as its output. Since the tee command is a trusted system utility it can make those changes, however by default it runs with your own user privileges, and since modifying system configuration files requires root privileges, the sudo command is being used to invoke tee as the root user instead.

Once all the above is configured, pressing the assigned key combination while VoiceOver is running will make the system display the TouchID authentication prompt for you to allow the aforementioned AppleScript to kill the CoreAudio daemon as root, which in turn will trigger a restart of that service.

As an alternative, enabling the secure shell remote login will allow you to access your Mac remotely from another computer and kill the coreaudiod process that way.

Disclaimer: I am still on macOS 15 so I cannot guarantee that any of the above will work on macOS 26.

I saw a gist somewhere to do that, but lost the source and wasn't able to find it again after like my 4th reset of mac since 2023. Thanks so much for posting this here!

My source of this knowledge regarding using TouchID as an authentication method for `sudo` is a thread that someone made with some macOS tricks not long ago. While the command I wrote is likely not a verbatim copy of that because I came up with it myself to reply to this thread from my understanding of the original solution, I did not come up with the idea that led to the solution mentioned on the aforementioned thread, and thus don't deserve credit for just relying on it here.

I’m also experiencing audio issues in this new system. At first, I thought it was fine, but now I’ve completely changed my mind. Audio devices in Loopback cause the sound to drop out on the Mac. I don’t know if it’s the entire system sound or just the one going through the audio device, but it’s a big issue. Only after I disabled the devices in Loopback did things improve. For now, I prefer to keep them off, just to be safe.
Still, sometimes without any reason I lose sound for a moment. It comes back after a short while, but it’s not a pleasant experience. Also, when I talk with my friend on FaceTime, I can’t hear her at all. And that’s despite the fact that she has her microphone on and everything is correctly configured on my side as well. There’s clearly a problem here. I’m not sure whose side it’s on—hers or mine. Maybe it’s on her end, that’s what I suspect. When she switches to FaceTime on her phone, everything works fine. The issue only happens when she takes the call on her Mac. That’s why I think the problem is on her side.
Even the developers of Loopback and Audio Hijack say the issue lies with Apple and that Apple needs to fix it. At least, that’s how I understood it.